Selective Mock Test 1 — Reading (Year 6)

For ninety years the fig tree held the corner,
a green umbrella opened over the street,
its roots like knuckles pushing through the footpath,
its shade a pool where tired dogs lay down.

The children climbed it every summer evening
and hung their laughter in its highest boughs;
the bats came in at dusk like scraps of paper
and squabbled over fruit until the dawn.

But on a Monday, men arrived with orange ropes
and machines that growled like something hungry.
By noon the corner stood as bare as a hand
that has let go of something it was holding.

Now the sun lies flat and white across the bitumen,
and nobody stops there, and nobody stays.
Only the old man from number twelve
still pauses at the kerb, as if to ask permission,
before he steps into the light.

Ask your grandparents where they played when they were your age, and many will give you the same answer: in the street. Cricket games stretched from one letterbox to the next, chalk drawings covered the bitumen, and children only went home when the streetlights flickered on. Today, most of our streets belong to cars. It is time to give some of them back.

The idea is simple. For three hours every Sunday afternoon, a quiet residential street would be closed to through traffic. Residents could still drive slowly to and from their homes, but the road would become a space for bikes, skipping ropes, hopscotch and conversation.

Some people will say this is unsafe or inconvenient. Yet towns that have tried 'play streets' report the opposite. In one trial, neighbours who had lived side by side for years met for the first time. Parents said their children spent less time on screens and more time outdoors. Not a single serious accident was recorded.

There are health benefits, too. Doctors warn that many children do not get the hour of active play they need each day. A play street costs almost nothing — a few signs and a volunteer at each end — yet it offers free exercise right outside the front door.

Of course, not every street is suitable. Busy main roads and bus routes must stay open. But on the thousands of quiet streets across our suburbs, the only thing stopping us is habit.

So talk to your neighbours. Write to your local council. Ask for one street, one afternoon, one trial. Our grandparents knew something we have forgotten: a street is not just a place to drive through. It is a place to live.

In this extract, a bridge engineer named Hana Whitlock looks back on her childhood.

When I was nine, I was frightened of the footbridge over Mullet Creek. It was only forty metres long, but it swayed when people walked on it, and through the gaps between the planks I could see the brown water sliding underneath. Every morning my brother marched across without a glance, while I took the long way round by the road, adding twenty minutes to my walk to school.

My father, who was a carpenter, never teased me about it. Instead, one Saturday he took me down to the creek with a notebook and asked me to draw the bridge — every cable, every bolt, every post. I grumbled, but I did it. Then he explained what each part was doing: which pieces were pulling, which were pushing, and how the gentle sway was not a weakness but a way of letting the bridge bend instead of break.

I am not sure I believed him completely. But the following Monday I stood at the end of the bridge for a long time, thinking about the cables holding hands with the posts, and then I walked across. My legs were shaking. I did not look down.

I have designed eleven bridges since then, some of them hundreds of metres long. People sometimes ask whether I became an engineer because I loved bridges. The truth is the opposite: I became one because I was afraid of them, and someone showed me that understanding a thing can make it smaller than your fear.

Four students describe a place they love to visit.

Extract A — Oliver
Tucked between a laundromat and a bakery is a secondhand bookshop that smells of dust and vanilla. Inside, the shelves lean together like old friends sharing a secret, and the owner, Mr Petrakis, knows exactly where every book is, even though nothing seems to be in any order. I go there every Saturday with the pocket money I earn walking our neighbour's dog. Last month I found a hand-drawn map of the city, dated 1920, folded inside a novel. I still don't know who put it there, and I like it that way.

Extract B — Amira
At low tide, the rock platform at the southern end of the beach turns into a hundred tiny worlds. Each pool is different: one is full of darting fish no bigger than my fingernail, another is carpeted with purple sea urchins. My aunt, who studies marine life, taught me never to lift a rock without putting it back exactly as I found it, because something might be living underneath. I have to keep an eye on the time, though. When the tide turns, the water creeps back surprisingly quickly.

Extract C — Declan
My grandmother's vegetable garden doesn't look like much from the street — just a tangle of stakes and netting behind a wooden fence. But in summer it's the busiest place I know. Bees hum over the zucchini flowers, and the tomatoes hang so heavily that the plants have to be tied up with strips of old T-shirts. Gran lets me choose what to grow in one corner each year. This year I tried pumpkins, and they took over half the path. Gran said she'd never seen anything so greedy, but she was smiling.

Extract D — Sienna
Once a month, the astronomy club opens the observatory on Kellerman Hill to the public. You have to walk the last part of the track in the dark, because lights would spoil everyone's view. The first time I looked through the big telescope, I saw the rings of Saturn and gasped out loud — they looked too perfect to be real, like a sticker someone had put on the lens. Now I'm a junior member of the club. I guide visitors up the steps with a red torch and point out which star is which.

Two writers give their views on whether competitive sport should be compulsory at school.

Writer 1
Competitive sport should be part of every student's week. Learning to win without boasting and to lose without sulking is a skill that no textbook can teach. When a team trains together for a whole season, students who might never have spoken to each other learn to rely on one another. Some argue that competition makes less sporty children feel left out, but this is exactly why sport must be compulsory: if it were optional, the students who most need to build confidence would simply never try. Of course, schools should offer a range of sports, from netball to orienteering, so that every child can find something that suits them. Exercise matters, but the real value of competitive sport lies in what it teaches about character.

Writer 2
Every child needs regular exercise — on that, nearly everyone agrees. But forcing every student into competitive sport is the wrong way to provide it. For children who are less coordinated, being picked last or losing every week can turn exercise into something they dread, and that feeling can last well into adulthood. Schools should offer activities such as dance, bushwalking and free play at lunchtime, which keep children just as active without a scoreboard. Competitive teams should certainly be available for students who choose them, because some students thrive on the challenge. However, the goal should be to help every child find a lifelong love of movement, not to rank them against their classmates.